


young, offensive, and probably grimy

by searwrites (sears)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, band/stoner!au, please check notes for trigger warnings, teenage dirtbags nothing new here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 11:34:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1264963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sears/pseuds/searwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>band/stoner!au where armin and jean hook up and eren is afraid of losing them - originally posted <a href="http://searwrites.tumblr.com/post/77665420647/young-offensive-and-probably-grimy%20">here</a> </p>
<p>---------</p>
<p>“All endings are actually beginnings.”</p>
<p>That’s what Armin keeps telling them, at least. Not like Jean needs to hear it. Jean needs a socially adept awakening like he needs a hole in the head. Eren, on the other hand, has a long way to go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	young, offensive, and probably grimy

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: sexual content, recreational drug use, lots of swearing, poorly timed dilla references, mild homophobic slurs, teenage boys being teenage boys, alternating povs, past!eren/mikasa, mentions present!mikasa/annie +other potentially triggering content that i can’t think of
> 
>  
> 
> (I always post fics to tumblr at least a week before I post them here fyi)

“All endings are actually beginnings.”

That’s what Armin keeps telling them, at least. Not like Jean needs to hear it. Jean needs a socially adept awakening like he needs a hole in the head. Eren, on the other hand, has a long way to go.

 

Jean didn’t really expect all this emotional turmoil when he first joined the band. He was lured in by Mikasa’s pretty face on all the posters and the facebook page, and then by Armin’s delicate charm when he rocks from side to side up on the stage, and was lastly pulled completely beneath the tide, entranced by Eren’s methodically aggressive drumming.

Except now Mikasa is out of the picture completely, and Eren is just methodically aggressive in all aspects of his daily life.

It was obnoxious to begin with, but now it isn’t so bad. Eren’s temper is like the missing fourth member, but Jean actually kinda likes it, if he’s honest. Eren bites as hard as he barks, and it somehow makes him interesting.

Or perhaps that’s just Jean The College Dropout talking.

His parents don’t even resent them, funnily enough. In fact, his mother adores Armin, calls him ‘sweetie’ and always feeds him her home cooked food. Sometimes Jean calls Armin ‘sweetie’ too, real low and coaxing, right into his ear, if only to watch him squirm. Jean’s mother also calls both Eren and Armin orphans, which they are, but that doesn’t mean they’re any more or less pathetic than Jean is. At least they have their own apartment - Jean still lives in his parent’s basement.

So - an ending as a beginning. It is most certainly that way to Jean. Mikasa’s departure was his open door, his golden ticket. For Armin it’s something similar, but for Eren it’s something not unlike the apocalypse, the end of the fucking world as he knows it. Jean plays bass as hard, if not harder, than she did, but Mikasa could sing, and Jean sounds like the teenage male equivalent of a car wreck whenever he opens his mouth and lets loose.

The most unfortunate part of it all is that Jean alone is not enough. He thinks to Armin he is, more than enough even, but Armin is too easy and docile to be the voice of command. Eren is a volatile, overly emotional piece of shit right now, yeah, but it was  _his_  band to begin with - his idea to put them together.

SGST they’re called. Eren even wants to change the name.

On top of all of this, they’ve had a mini-tour booked since last August. Six months of prep, the beginning of which was under the assumption that Mikasa would change her mind and come back, which Jean thinks only Eren ever deluded himself into really,  _honestly_  believing. Now it’s turned into a frantic last ditch attempt at finding a single-serve vocalist, which isn’t turning out all that great so far.

Despite Eren and his eternal state of vibrating angst, Jean doesn’t feel unwelcome. Armin was the one that took him in with open arms, but Eren never turns away from him, never ignores him or shuts down his attempts at debate or conversation. In fact, he kinda likes ruffling Eren’s feathers, even if it earns him a gentle slap on the back of his head from Armin.

Maybe one day he’ll just snap and there won’t even be a band for this stupid potshot tour. At least he got to experience it while he could

  
  


“What in the fuck did you do?”

Armin gapes at Jean from the bottom of the stairs, trudging down into the depths of his basement where Jean is currently shirtless and leaning over the deep ceramic sink by their washing machine. He’s got electric clippers held guilty in his hand, as if that’s the most illegal thing currently in his possession (which is laughable on its own).

“I tried to give myself a mohawk,” Jean states rather pathetically, gazing at his own reflection like it failed to deliver some kind of untold promise.

“Here,” Armin says, dropping his sling bag on the ground and prancing over, his converse squeaking against the bare concrete of the utility room. He yanks the clippers from Jean’s hand, and dives right into fixing whatever mistakes he can see from the back of him. “Your hair’s too short, this’ll look better.”

Armin ends up walking Jean backwards past the hanging sheet into his part of the basement, laughing when Jean almost stumbles, and ignoring Jean when he tells him to unplug the clippers incase they drop into the sink and somehow manage set the house on fire. Armin grins and shakes his head, shoves Jean backwards until he falls into the enormous recliner chair he’d stolen from his dad’s pool room when he replaced it earlier in the year.

Armin skips (yes, actually  _skips_ ) over to his bag on the floor and shuffles through it until he’s procured a small plastic tub, and then skips back over to Jean, jumping onto the chair with him. It’s big enough that Jean doesn’t even have to move for Armin to fit neatly in his lap.

“This was Mikasa’s,” Armin says, voice quiet like he’s telling secrets, like Eren is somehow telepathically connected to him and will find out he’s taken the epitaph right off of Mikasa’s proverbial grave. Jean wouldn’t be all that surprised if he was.

Jean ends up resting his hands on top of Armin’s thighs, thumbs the bony jut of his hips. Armin uncaps the plastic tub and Jean is immediately hit in the face with a powerful whiff of coconut. His room suddenly smells like a fucking tanning salon.

“Jesus, do you bake with that shit too?” Jean asks, watching as Armin dips his small hands into the gooey looking wax, massages it as he presses his thumb into the pads of his fingers.

“Chin down,” Armin commands, ignoring the question, and Jean sighs as Armin begins to work the product into his hair, nails occasionally scratching his scalp and making him shiver. “At least you’ll smell pretty,” he adds.

Whatever Armin did to finish off his wildly under-planned self styling attempts left enough hair on the back of his head for Armin to need to style there too. His forearms are warm where they rest on Jean’s shoulders, right against the crook of his neck, and his entire body breaks out into goosebumps when Armin scratches him again, this time entirely deliberate.

It’s kind of like getting high, Jean reasons with himself. You chase this feeling, this thing that pricks at your skin with delightful zips of electricity, or maybe something that makes you wanna sink right back into your pillows until you’re suffocated by fabric. That’s what Armin is to Jean, this being of warmth and smiles, small hands and coconut scented fingertips, and it even makes Jean hungry, too - only the hunger is something he isn’t really sure how to define.

So, as it seems only fitting, Jean tips his head back as he leans up, and he bites gently at the edge of Armin’s jaw, right near his chin. Armin moans a little - those soft, helpless sounds he probably doesn’t even realize he makes - and clenches his thighs over Jean’s.

And it isn’t anything other than what it is. That’s how Jean’s conditioned himself to rationalize it, and that’s all he needs. Armin sits with his crazy ass double jointed knees, skinny limbs that splay outwards instead of beneath him, like he’s made of putty. It used to make Jean’s groin clench in sympathy, watching the twisted way Armin sits, but now he kinda likes it, finds it endearing in a way.

He almost lets Armin kiss him, but the hair wax is still open and between them in their laps, and something about the strong scent makes him queasy.

“Will Eren recognize this smell?” he asks, without really meaning to.

Armin sighs, deflates a little and hunches his shoulders, sits in a way that would have definitely made Jean flinch before.

“You care about this more than he does sometimes, I swear-”

“Are you shitting me, Armin?” Jean asks, pulling his head back to glare at the boy. “We  _are_ talking about the same person here, right? The one that punched a hole in your drywall when he found out where Mikasa went? The one that squares up to guys twice his size just to prove a point?”

Armin rolls his eyes and laces his fingers at the nape of Jean’s neck, lets his arms drape over his chest. “He cares a lot less inside than he does outside.”

Jean’s brows knit together. “That makes…  _no_  fucking sense, why would you pretend to care more than you do about a breakup?”

Armin shrugs, dropping his arms from Jean’s neck to put the lid back on the product, and then thumbs the curve of Jean’s jaw, feels his way through the stubble there like Jean is a piece of fine art he’s trying to observe.

“It’s how he deals with things. I wish you wouldn’t worry about it, it was never your problem to begin with.”

“I just-” Jean begins, and then stops on a shaky sigh as Armin’s mouth replaces his thumb. “I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, you know?”

Armin pulls away from him, laughing quietly.

“It’s too late. You’ve stepped on  _all_  the toes, you can’t take it back,” Armin says through a grin.

“Don’t be a dick, you know what I meant-”

“God, you’re just as dramatic as him sometimes. Fuck it, you’ve done a number on us both. You’ve  _surpassed_  stepping on toes, you’ve broken all of our feet.”

Jean grumbles something childish and unintelligible. Which is stupid, because it only makes Armin smile wider.  _Fuck_ , his mouth is perfect.

“But guess what that means?” Armin says, eyes sparkling with something that Jean thinks might be scary if they ever gave a name to it. He leans in real close, talks real quiet, presses their foreheads together, and then says, “We aren’t going  _anywhere_.”

  
  


The place they go to practice in is a total shithole, but they’ve been using it since before Jean came along, so he doesn’t really feel like he has the right to complain.

That’s the thing about this whole setup. It’s like there’s two eras - pre and post-Mikasa - and Jean isn’t really sure where he best fits in, or if he really fits in at all.

It’s a warehouse that sits right on the edges of city limits, out where there’s more graffiti than traffic lights, and it’s shitty but at least it’s cheap. It’s kind of like practicing in a concrete icebox most days - the heating has been broken for as long as Jean can remember. It’s alright, usually, as practice alone is enough to get them working up a sweat, but it kinda sucks in the dead of winter like this. The back wall is all made of concrete bricks with a ratty futon sitting against it. Eren’s drum kit sits on an old turkish rug to the right of it, and everything else tends to migrate around these two central points.

Armin is currently huddled in one of Eren’s enormous hoodies on the futon, his knees pulled to his chest and the hoodie stretched over his legs, leaving him all wound up like a ball of yarn. All you can really see, apart from his fluffy head of hair, is the bright red of his shoes peeking out beneath the garment.

Being somewhat the enigma amongst a metal slash punk band, Armin is the breath of fresh air. Jean isn’t fucking around when he says it was Armin that made him walk closer to the stage the first time he saw them live, at least close enough to be able to see Eren not long after. He wears his guitar high enough up his chest and has the shaggy hair to pass as a modern day Beatle, but he shreds like you would not  _believe_. He’s a walking conundrum, in more ways than one, and Jean loves that about him.

Eren sits at his drums, tapping his feet in rapid succession against the carpet, the muted thuds a quiet break from the otherwise relentlessly brutal double bass. Double pedals used to be a novelty to Jean, now he can’t really imagine what it’d be like without them.

Eren’s nickname is ‘the beast’ - even had a fan write it in sharpie on a white tshirt for him that he wears so much it’s got holes in it. Jean thinks he’s slowly starting to understand the whole ‘cares more outside than inside’ thing. Eren is good at putting on a show.

They’re both quietly taking a back seat on this one. Mostly because the vocal auditions today are people that Jean knows and they don’t. Eren is too pissed off to function normally anyways, and Armin seems like he’s a degree and a half away from frozen, so it’s probably for the best.

At least now he knows they value his opinion. Enough that Jean is the  _only_  fucking person greeting the new potential vocalists at the door to their space - all two of them.

“‘Sup, man?” Connie says, tipping his chin up, his hair shaved so close to his head that it almost gives him this weird neo-nazi look that Jean isn’t sure he likes.

Jean drags him in, Sasha trailing quietly behind him, and takes the time to introduce him to his bandmates. Eren does this weird grunting thing that Jean thinks is probably supposed to mean words, and Armin smiles and pops a hand out from beneath the hoodie, waving.

“So, uh,” Connie begins, shifting his weight from foot to foot, “You guys gonna play, or what?”

He seems kinda strung out, Jean notices. Like his leg jitters more than Eren’s does when he’s been away from his kit for too long, and the bags beneath his eyes look almost like bruises. Kinda lame, really - Jean is a bit of a waster himself, but tweaking fuckheads that eat uppers like they’re candy are a whole different breed of hassle that nobody needs.

“Nah, man, it’s too cold,” Jean says. “We’ll just play a track or something.”

They must look some kind of intimidating - a gang of skinny and pissed off teens, all huddled in a tomb of concrete and tin. Connie looks a little more than freaked out, but he could just be nervous. Jean nods at Armin to hook his phone up to the amp so he can at least have some kind of a backing track. He chances a look at Eren afterwards and sees him stuffing his fists into the pockets of his jeans, looking less than impressed. Jean sighs tiredly, ready to just tell Connie to fucking leave already.

Connie doesn’t so much sing as he does this raspy sort of post-hardcore punk scream. Jean actually kinda likes it, but it isn’t what they’re looking for. Besides,  _Eren_  is their screamer. That’s how they’ve been setting up on the past few gigs they’ve done as a trio - Eren gets a mic bent over his snare and screams some of the breakdowns. The rest is a combination of Armin and Eren harmonizing.

Jean isn’t even in the mood to hear what’s next, but Armin greets Sasha with enough enthusiasm that Jean can’t really find it in him to turn and say _“Sorry, changed our mind, no one will ever live up to a ghost”_.

Sasha is a lot more melodic, probably a lot more like what Eren was looking for, in terms of similarities to Mikasa. He even perks up a bit when she starts singing along to one of their older songs, changing up the chorus a bit, and Jean thinks maybe they’re onto something here. The thought of having Sasha front their band feels kind of wrong, though. It’s like trying to push a dog through a cat door, it just doesn’t  _fit_. But whatever, Eren seems moderately impressed.

“How many of the dates can you do? We have six coming up,” Eren says, gnawing on the torn up flesh that was once the cuticle of his thumbnail. His leg is jiggling now too, anxious energy all focused on the bounce of his knee, and Jean wonders if Sasha just somehow attracts twitchy guys.

“We can do all of them,” Sasha grins, sliding not-so-discretely over to where Connie’s standing off to the side.

“ _We_?” Eren asks.

Connie smirks, and then gestures to both himself and Sasha with his thumb. “We come as a pair.”

Eren very dramatically rolls his eyes, and then spins back around on his stool almost childishly, faces Armin and ignores everyone else in the room as he begins to slap out random beats against his thighs. Armin bobs his head like he can hear the same music Eren does, like whatever phantom sounds are threaded through the back of his conscience get transmitted by something Jean doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to see.

Well, that’s probably it then.

“Sorry guys,” Jean says, with a smile that’s more tired than apologetic, “We only have room for one.”

And Jean wants to scream, because they don’t even have that. Both Connie and Sasha leave, Sasha looking more disappointed than her shorter, mouthier half. They barely have room for Jean, so how they expect him to just magically come up with a fourth member that will somehow fit into their broken fucking dynamic is lost on him.

It doesn’t matter now. This was Jean’s last resort, the only other people he had left to ask. Now it’s up to them.

  
  


  
■/■/■

  
  


  
_‘what r u wearing? ;)’_

Armin grins like an idiot at his phone. It’s a helpless reaction, really. He smiles at a lot of things, so there really isn’t any particular reason that Eren should ask him about it  _now_ , but such is life.

“Why the fuck are you so happy?” Eren mumbles, scowling in Armin’s general direction before refocusing his eyes on the backlit screen of his laptop.

“Because I’m breathing,” Armin answers easily.

_‘clothes, you perv,’_ Armin texts in response to Jean.

Armin glances up at Eren, sighing as he watches Eren’s mouth distort while he attempts to chew at the inside of his cheeks, a bad habit he’s had since they were kids.

_‘:(‘_

“Why the fuck can’t anyone front a band anymore? Like, what happened in the past five years that made it impossible for people to grasp the concept of music that isn’t made by a goddamn computer?”

“We could get a synth player!” Armin perks up, and he grins when Eren frowns deep enough to make his forehead wrinkle. “You’re too easy.” Armin focuses back down on the keys of his phone.

_‘i have a pair of your boxers in my bag… was gunna wear them 2 bed…’_

“We’re not making a new fucking band, Armin, all we need are vocals,” Eren huffs, focusing angrily on his screen. Even his typing turns aggressive after a while, he must be talking to someone obnoxious. Maybe it’s Jean on facebook, actually - Jean is shockingly good at multitasking, Armin has learned.

_‘jerk off in them ;) think of me when u cum’_

Armin laughs a little, amused by the endless amount of bullshit that Jean seems to always come up with. He’s like one of those floating balloons with tickers that fly over the football stadiums sometimes - all full of air and too far away for anyone to read.

“Who the  _fuck_  are you texting?” Eren snaps.

“Jean,” Armin answers, entirely uncaring of revealing too much with how girly that last giggle was. He’s known Eren for too long now to care. “And if we really needed vocals we wouldn’t be able to cover these shows with just the three of us.”

Eren slaps his laptop closed and storms past Armin, headed towards his room. Armin rolls his eyes, then looks back down at his screen to text the next message.

_‘ill take a pic in them… itll last u longer’_

“You guys are gay as fuck,” Eren huffs, yanking his tshirt over his head. It’s the one that says ‘the beast’ on it, which Armin still marvels at for being merely threadbare and not actual scraps by now.

“You jealous?” Armin asks, enough of a teasing lilt to his voice to get Eren to slam his door behind him. He would yell at him for being a dick, but his phone vibrates before he can bring himself to do it.

_‘harsh ;(‘_

_‘u try living with a beast and see how thick ur skin gets’_

Armin pads quietly to his room, spinning his phone in his palm the way Eren sometimes spins his sticks. He broke his phone a few times doing this before, at least until Jean forced him to buy a case for it.

_“You’re too damn poor to go breaking phones,”_  he’d said, all huffy and caring, taking the phone from Armin to inspect the damage.  _“You put frozen chicken on ramen and call it a fancy fucking dinner, come on. Preserve your shit.”_  If Armin were to make a list of ‘things that make me want to put my hands on Jean’ this moment would be in the top ten.

_‘u shud tame him ;)’_

Armin laughs as he crawls into bed, Jean’s boxers hanging a little loose around his hips. He burrows far enough beneath the covers that the chilled tip of his nose starts to defrost.

_‘think thats a 2 person job unfortunately…’_

  
  


 

It’s a bleak sort of day when Eren snags Armin out of bed to go confirm their booking at the Trost Bar. The air is damp and cold, and it fogs around their faces whenever they breathe. Armin is stuffed into a green parka, while Eren opts for a simple black hoodie, which makes Armin shiver just looking at it.

Armin would invite Jean out with them if he wasn’t still half asleep and getting groggier with every step, but Eren walks like he’s on some kind of a mission. This only really gives Armin pause once they make their way into the bar and Armin clocks the two guys standing off to the side of it, the two guys Eren’s eyes immediately hone in on.

Eren must have known, somehow.

Armin gnaws on his lower lip as they approach the bar, staying one step back and wary of whatever pending explosion is about to occur. Eren’s so tense his shoulders are vibrating, the muscles shivering beneath his skin, and Armin wouldn’t notice if he wasn’t wearing such a weak excuse of a hoodie.

The shitty part is, Armin used to be friends with Bertholdt. Reiner he never really had an opinion on, but now he feels like he has to hate them both by association. Bertholdt must not like the thick, palpable tension between them either, because he tilts his mouth in a sad sort of smile when Armin looks at him.

Nothing is even said. Armin can’t see Eren’s expression from behind him like this, but Reiner must find something amusing about it, because he huffs out a small little laugh. It’s the kind of laugh thats sole purpose is to taunt, and  _fuck_ \- if it’s a reaction he wants, he sure picked the right dog cage to poke.

"Got a problem,  _Roid’ner_?” Eren bites.

Reiner barely flinches, in fact he smiles at them both, looks a little too amused. Bertholdt frowns despairingly and sits in a mass of hunched shoulders and barely restrained trepidation. He’s the tallest person Armin has ever seen, stunting him by almost an entire foot, but he always manages to look so  _small_  when he’s nervous.

"No, no problem," Reiner says, voice light and dripping in sarcasm, "But I wouldn’t have a problem as _I’m_  not the one still crying over letting Mikasa move on to bigger and better things.”

Eren’s head drops, hangs low from his shoulders, but Armin can hear him laughing. The bartender was supposed to be going to get the manager, but she stands there and flits her gaze between Eren and Reiner, waiting. Armin is tempted to shout at her to go do something, but then he should probably take his own advice.

"Since when is turning into a dirty fucking hippie ‘bigger and better things’?"

"Since the only other alternative is  _you two_ ,” Reiner sneers.

Bertholdt puts a calming hand on Reiner’s shoulder at this, and Armin has now successfully bitten a mangled crater into the inside of his lower lip,  _wonderful_.

"At least with us she was safe," Eren says lowly, and Reiner’s face distorts in confusion. Eren then takes a step closer to Reiner, one that puts their faces close enough together that Armin’s stomach lurches dangerously. "Who knows what kind of skank-ass  _diseases_  she’s caught from Annie?”

Something in Reiner snaps, and Armin groans as Eren fights back, gets right up in Reiner’s face after having been shoved backwards once already. Eren doesn’t know when to stand down half the time, and Armin’s beginning to think he knows this. Maybe it’s why he didn’t come here alone, maybe it’s why Armin was forced into waking up before noon for the first time this week.

And, of course,  _now_  the bartender decides to move. Eren and Reiner tussle enough that some of the bar stools are scattered on the ground, and Armin keeps trying to pull Eren back the way Bertholdt is doing with Reiner, but Eren’s too quick, too taut with rage and brimming with violent energy, ready to burst.

The manager ends up kicking them out, and in the midst of the guy trying to explain that they’re barred, that SGST will  _never_  play in this bar again, Reiner waltzes up from behind and spits right on Eren’s face.

“ _Shit_ ,” Armin huffs, doing the best he can with his meager body weight to tackle Eren sideways, clinging to him and shoving him away from all of the aggressors that have since managed to make his eyes glaze over and his jaw jut out in blind fury.

He can’t really see what he’s doing, doesn’t really have a plan other than  _'get Eren the fuck away from them'_ , and then lets out a soft  _"ooft"_  right into Eren’s chest when they hit the brick wall of the side alley.

Armin stays there, hugging Eren tight, pressing him to the wall, his face nestled into the warmth of Eren’s chest. Eren protests and yells, but Armin ignores all of it, stands his ground until Eren calms the fuck down.

"…I hope he sits on that fucking dyke and caves her skull in-"

"Eren,  _please_ ,” Armin pleads, voice muffled by his hoodie. Eren’s heart is beating so loud and so fast that Armin’s worried it might short itself out and stop altogether.

"He insulted you too, Armin, _fuck_ ,” Eren shouts, breath huffing out in a cloud of condensation as Armin deliberately squeezes his middle.

"I don’t care, I never care," Armin mutters, somewhat pitifully, burrowing his face deeper into Eren’s chest. He’s chasing the warmth, or perhaps trying to convince himself that Eren is still alive, yes, still breathing, yes, he hasn’t gotten himself killed yet, no.

Eren has the tendency to be overly dramatic. It’s why Armin doesn’t flinch when Eren fights to get him off, it’s why Armin probably knew, before they’d even left, that something like this would happen. It isn’t because Mikasa left for Annie, at least not really. But more that Annie’s world is so different from Eren’s, that Mikasa wanted so  _much_  of a change, instead of just a simple ‘something new’ like she’d said.

It also doesn’t help that Eren, for a while, kind of admired Annie. She’s good at being deceptively accommodating, she morphs into the kind of person she thinks you want her to be. Armin is all too familiar with it, but even  _he_  recognizes that it never was like that with Mikasa, that Annie has always just been wary of men.

Eventually Eren deflates, lets the muscles go loose in his arms until they’re hung tiredly over Armin’s shoulders. Only once Armin detects his breathing has leveled does he allow himself to tilt his head up, to look at Eren and the bright red of his cheeks, burned by bitter angst and the below freezing wind chill.

"Why are you always so  _nice_  to people?” Eren asks through a sigh, his hands sliding up to cup the curve of Armin’s jaw, tilting his head further back until the tips of their noses almost touch.

His cold fingers press into the nape of Armin’s neck, work out kinks Armin didn’t even realize were there, as his eyelids get heavy and his body leans a little further into Eren’s. He wishes he had this effect on Eren, wishes he could touch him like this and get him to calm down, an alternative to otherwise having to physically restrain him as best he can until the adrenaline begins to ebb from his bloodstream.

Armin only shrugs in response, tilts his head so one of his cheeks rests heavier against Eren’s palm than the other, his silent way of letting Eren know he likes whatever it is he’s doing right now.

"The only person that deserves it is me, anyways," Eren mumbles childishly.

_And Jean_ , Armin thinks.

"Maybe I just don’t care about anyone else," Armin says.

Eren looks right into Armin’s eyes, stares so hard its like he can see right through him, and Armin bravely meets his gaze, faces Eren like the challenge he is, and probably always will be. This soft, tiny upward curve of his lips tells Armin he’s trying not to smile, and this is the part where Armin has to always reel himself back, has to splash himself in the face with cold water to lurch reality back into focus.

Eren just looks at Armin like he’s amazed by him- like he  _loves_  him, maybe.

"How do people not just walk all over you?" Eren muses quietly.

It feels not unlike a stab to the gut, Armin thinks, because the eager sincerity with which Eren looks at him hurts. All Armin can think about are the half-drunken kisses Eren gave him when he started sleeping in Armin’s bed after Mikasa left. How soft and warm his mouth was, how he was so bitter Armin could almost taste it. Even how Eren refused to take a shower without Armin in it, for at least a month and a half after she’d moved out.

It hurts to think Eren doesn’t realize that he fights just as much as Eren does, only in different ways. It hurts to know that Eren doesn’t realize Armin gets trampled on all the time, and that the number one culprit of this is Eren himself.

He wants to say to Eren that  _“they do”_ , but there isn’t much point in stirring the pot. Eren is still shaken up from running into Reiner, and it probably wouldn’t be wise to get him going again

  
  


“You think you can come without me touching you?” Armin peers at Jean from where he’s kneeled between his bare legs at the foot of his bed, looks up from beneath his lashes like butter wouldn’t fucking melt.

Jean laughs a little, tight and breathy and then groans when Armin delicately licks his balls, lets his head fall back hard enough that his neck cracks.

“Pretty sure your tongue counts as touching, Armin.”

Hooking up with Jean wasn’t something that was ever intended. It’s not like he wanted Jean to join the band solely to sit on his face - even if he  _does_  rather enjoy it now. He was just the best bass player they knew, and he liked the band enough that he was willing to drop out of school to make it a full time thing.

He’d been looking at grad programs when Armin met him, was a teacher’s assistant in one of the lower programs at his school and was building up intern credits by it. Armin still feels a little bad for letting him do that, especially with how they’ve been sitting dead in the water for so long. A band isn’t something you make a full time living off of, at least not anymore.

Armin kisses Jean’s hip bone, presses his nose into the base of his cock and licks again, too soft to be anything more than a deliberate tease.

“Armin, fucking  _please_ -”

“Please what?” Armin grins.

“Use your fucking mouth as God intended,” Jean says, smirking and haughty, but too breathless for it to pack its intended punch.

“Asshole,” Armin mutters fondly, and he pinches Jean’s thigh hard enough to get a yelp out of him before he wets his lips and sucks him down.

Armin used to think something was wrong with him, how much he enjoys the hot, heavy weight of a dick in his mouth. For so long he’d wanted to suck Eren’s cock so bad he started dreaming about it, and then was mortified to realize that it’s not necessarily a normal thing to want from your best friend. But then Mikasa kind of came from the same roots as he did, so why was she any different?

He quickly nips that thought in the bud. Speaking of which-

“For the keeper of my come,” Jean says eloquently, handing Armin an expertly rolled joint over in his open palm, as if it’s some kind of delicate treasure. To Jean it probably is.

Armin snorts, but takes it into his mouth and lets Jean light it for him anyway, pulling in a long, chest burning drag. “Is that what you’re calling me now?”

“I thought it was more stately and proper sounding than  _‘jizz guzzler’_.”

This one earns Jean a punch to the arm, which ends up in them falling backwards into his bed, the half second of fight turned quickly into hazy post-blowjob snuggles. Jean is a cuddler, even more than Armin is - who knew?

The advantage of hooking up with Jean in his house is that he almost always gets food from his parents. Armin doesn’t think he’s ever been this well fed, and it’s starting to show - he’s still thin, but his stomach is a little pudgier and his chest is soft, not nearly as bony. The downside to it is that they never get to fall asleep together, which is lame, because usually after coming more than once Armin is ready for lights out. The weed doesn’t exactly help him regain any of that lost vivacity either.

It’s this thought that pushes Armin up from the bed, has him stumbling around the mess that is Jean’s basement room to trip and fall his way back into his clothes. Jean sits up on his bed, crosses his legs and looks kinda stupid with nothing but one white sock and a ratty pair of boxers on, looking like a white trash version of a Hindu god. And by stupid Armin means  _‘stupid hot’_. He’s turned smoking into some sort of erotic art form with the way he always lets it billow out of his mouth like that.

“Leavin’ so soon?” Jean grins, like he can hear what Armin’s thinking.

Armin finishes scratching a few dried flecks of come off of his jeans and then dusts the stray ash from his hoodie before putting it on, and sits once he’s decided he looks significantly less cum-slutty than he feels. At least enough for Jean’s mom to send him home with some food again.

“Gotta be a good boy,” he says, plucking the joint from Jean’s fingers and finishing it off, ignoring Jean’s indignant squawking.

Jean tugs him back by his hood when he walks away, holds him into his chest and growls right next to his ear, “When have I  _ever_  asked you to be a good boy, huh?”

Armin snorts, shrugging him off. If he leaves now he can catch the bus before it switches to night schedules, or else he’ll risk having to hop the train and walk an extra five blocks over. Jean lives rather inconveniently far out from the city, and by the pitiful look on Jean’s face, he’s thinking about exactly the same thing.

“You have a fucking apartment,” Jean practically whines, “Why can’t we do this there?”

“I’m not sure how Eren would feel about that,” Armin says, balancing on one foot while the other works at pulling his red converse over his socks.

“ _What_? Eren likes me,” Jean yelps. He loses all scope of volume when he’s high, it’s like he an amp with only a 1 or a 10- no middle ground.

Armin stops struggling with his shoes to very obviously roll his eyes at Jean.

“Okay, so we disagree on a lot of shit,” Jean corrects himself, “But at least he listens to my side of things, at least he hears me out. Remember that time I got him into old school rap after he said it was a plague on the history of music?”

Armin grins when he thinks about it. The thing about Eren is he’ll argue with anything he doesn’t agree with, but he’s so used to Armin not fighting back. Jean, on the other hand, is actually very good at fighting back, at least with words, so watching Eren’s flaming red cheeks when he got put in his place was actually really fucking amusing at the time. They were also baked as hell, so that could’ve been part of it too.

Jean has all the right qualities of an unofficial band manager, believe it or not. He isn’t a pushover, but he’s not aggressive either, at least not actively. He also supplies them with food and drugs, and is the only reason Armin started getting more than six hours of sleep at night.

And it’s on that vague train of thought that something just  _clicks_.

“Yeah, I remember,” Armin says, and he grins as he shoves Jean backwards on his bed, looms above him while Jean looks stuck between being confused and aroused. “You need to talk to him.”

“What?”

“You, talk to Eren. Try and convince him that the world isn’t ending, that maybe we don’t even need another vocalist, that we don’t always need to replace what we’ve lost, you know?”

“Um, I guess I could.”

Armin grins, a little dizzy as he catches his balance. The weed is starting to settle heavily into his bones, and suddenly the prospect of a long bus ride home isn’t so bad. He’s got headphones in his bag, he can rock out in the back and not give a shit if people think he’s crazy. His tongue tastes like Jean’s come and feels like it’s made of spun cotton, and he clicks it against the roof of his mouth and laughs when Jean calls him a weirdo.

“What do I say to him?” Jean asks, tucking a tupperware from his mom into Armin’s bag before handing it to him on his doorstep. “And why can’t you be there?”

“Because,” Armin shrugs, and Jean sighs a little when he leans up on his toes and kisses the edge of Jean’s jaw, just quick enough to not be noticed. “I think he’ll listen to someone new, you know? I think I remind him of too many things for him to take me seriously.”

Armin manages to catch the last bus, and immediately shoves in his earbuds and sinks into the tattered cushion of the seat. He’s almost too hazy to notice his phone buzzing in his pocket, and has to bite down on his own lips to stop himself from giggling like a maniac when he reads the text he gets from Jean.

_‘my diq misses ur mouth already :( :( :(‘_

  
  


  
■/■/■

  
  


  
“What in the flying fuck do  _you_  want?”

“Well shit, good morning to you too, sunshine,” Jean quips, voice obnoxious, even over the phone.

“I’m a little busy,” Eren sighs.

“With what?” Jean’s tinny cell-voice asks, “And don’t say practice, ‘cus I know for a fact you aren’t there.”

Eren falls back into his couch, slumps a little as he leans back into the cushions. Armin left him for the day, picked up an extra shift at work, so he’s actually the opposite of busy- but Jean doesn’t necessarily need to know that.

“Stuff,” he supplies helpfully.

“Alright, well, stuff sounds great and all, but I’ve got double bud and I’m not taking no for an answer.”

Which is how, exactly 24 minutes later (Eren still curses the day Armin put a clock up in their kitchen), Jean shows up at his doorstep with a case of expensive looking beer and a plastic bag all tied up in knots.

“Where’s the party?” Eren asks, forcing himself to yawn so he seems entirely uninterested in suddenly having company and not having to spend the day moping alone.

“Double bud,” Jean says, grinning like an idiot as he lifts both of the things in his hands, “Beer and weed, dude, it’s like the holy duo, or whatever.”

“It’s the holy trinity, you fuckwit,” Eren says, but he smiles as Jean brushes past him into the apartment despite himself.

Jean must have something against couches, because he always ends up sitting in front of it, instead of on it. He shoves Eren’s laptop aside on the coffee table to make room for his ‘rolling space’, as Armin calls it. Jean takes his joints  _way_  too fucking seriously.

Eren flips the tab on a beer, and is tempted to sit right back where he was on the couch just to be contrary, but ends up sitting down next to Jean instead. Jean must already be a little fucked, because he’s bopping his head to nothing, humming as he licks the rolling paper, and then rapping out nonsense under his breath as he presses the damp strip and twists to finish it off.

_“Put down your mic you lost your whole goal, you take it too seriously like it’s a gamble-”_

Eren flicks him in the neck, laughing as Jean makes an inhuman noise when he fumbles with the product in his hands. It’s ridiculous, but this idiot is growing on him. He likes none of the same shit they do, but he still just  _fits_  somehow. He’s got stupid taste in music, the most hipster white boy rap fan you’ve ever seen, but it’s… not really a  _bad_  thing.

Jean’s shit is always mind-blowingly potent. Two joints in and Eren is actually allowing Jean to commandeer his laptop, to browse through his recent likes on soundcloud and barely even protesting when he starts to show Eren all the new music-finding apps he’s been using. Shit that pumps elevator music into your headphones when you tell it you  _‘want to study’_ , or whatever.

In the midst of all this chummy bullshit, Jean’s phone buzzes twice on the far side of the table where he left it, and Eren can see from here, even with half-hazy eyes through all the fucking smoke hovering by their heads, that it’s Armin who’s texted him. And really, he  _has_  to know.

“So uh,” Eren eloquently begins, letting his head fall back to the couch and rolling it so he’s facing Jean, “What’s going on with you and Armin?”

Jean gets this twisted, goofy smile on his face, his eyes so hazy and happy that it barely looks like they’re open.

“We’ve been hooking up, you know?” Jean replies plainly, and something small and precious in Eren shatters.

“ _What?_ ” Eren says, and then punches Jean in the shoulder when he laughs at Eren’s obvious shock, “No I don’t fucking  _know_ , what the hell man?”

Jean rubs furiously at his shoulder, but his grin doesn’t falter. In fact, it turns almost devious, and he leans in real close to Eren as he asks, “Why, you jealous?”

“Ugh,” Eren shoves his stupid face away, takes the joint from him and tries not to choke when he takes too big a hit from it, “Why the fuck do you both always ask me that? Shit.”

“Maybe because we’re actually curious?” Jean says, tilting his head to one side.

“Yeah,” Eren says, without thinking, and then swallows a large mouthful of the beer, revelling in the burn as it forces it’s way past his throat, a contrary sensation to the way he seems so willing to vomit words at the moment. “Maybe I am.”

“Of who?” Jean asks simply.

Eren finds himself hazily aware of Jean’s leg stretched out beneath the table, right up against his. Jean’s foot is pointing towards Eren’s, and it probably means nothing but Eren finds himself wanting it to. Mean something, that is.  _Fuck_ , he’s high.

He’s not high enough to answer that fucking question though. Not gone enough not to care that Jean knows he feels a little left out, that he feels like everyone’s leaving him, one by one. Instead of answering, he shrugs and then presses his fingers into his jaw, pushes around the tension from his neck until his bones pop and Jean cringes.

“I used to wear a mouthguard to bed when I was a kid,” Eren mumbles, eyes still focused down at their feet beneath the table.

Jean laughs at this, barks all loud and dorky like he gets sometimes, and Eren nudges him with his shoulder, lets the weight of the high sink his body down into his dirty carpet.

“I’m serious, ask Armin. I grind my teeth, that’s why they’re all fucked up.”

Eren blushes as he says this, angry with himself for not being able to control this reaction. Jean has all straight teeth- obnoxious, toothpaste commercial type teeth, and Eren thinks his look like someone did a shoddy job of installing them to begin with. Like teeth are fucking kitchen cabinets, or some shit. God, Jean’s ridiculous grin is annoying, his teeth are so _perfect_.

“You didn’t just get braces?” Jean asks, like he can’t understand how not every kid was a spoiled ass rich boy with parents and dental insurance. Prick.

“No?” Eren says, voicing it like a question. A question of  _‘why the fuck are you so dumb and high and stuck up and perfect?’_

Jean takes this as some kind of invitation to snuggle. He giggles quietly as he presses his face into Eren’s shoulder, nuzzles his nose there enough to get Eren’s arm to breakout in goosebumps. Jean ends up just resting his temple there, looking out over the expanse of the living room as if it’s some kind of sight to behold.

“I think you’d look cute in braces,” he says quietly.

“Who the  _fuck-_ ” Eren yelps, no real heat behind it this time. In fact, as he says it, he’s actively trying not to laugh. “Who  _says_  that shit? Nobody thinks braces are cute, unless you’re a mom or a fucking pedophile.”

Jean snickers, tilts his head so he rubs his nose against Eren’s shoulder again, makes him shiver. Fuck.

“Alright, I just think you’re cute then, jesus,” Jean mumbles.

Eren cheeks burn so hot he thinks they might be neon bright to the naked eye. Maybe Jean has him all figured out, maybe that’s why he’s here. Maybe someone sent him swooping down to save both his and Armin’s poor, tortured souls, all with a perfect smile, a baggie of weed, and warm food.  _Fuck_.

“God, you and Armin really are rubbing off on each other,” Eren mutters without thinking.

Jean lets rip the most ridiculous high pitched cackle. He laughs so hard his voice cracks, and Eren thinks it’s stupid, but he still likes the sound of it.

Jean moves his head until his chin is resting on Eren’s shoulder, his nose barely an inch away from Eren’s neck.

"We are, actually," Jean says stupidly.

“Your fucking breath is tickling me,” Eren snaps shakily, shoving Jean’s face away from his shoulder, his arm tingling from the contact still.

Jean just smiles lazily, not at all surprising. “You’re just a little pent up ball of rage,” he says, in a voice that one would usually use to address a small pet.

“Who the fuck are you callin’ little?” Eren snaps back, jutting his chin out, and  _shit_ \- he whimpers when Jean grabs him by the jaw, holds his face there, all traces of angry bravado gone.

It feels like someone’s pressed pause on his life. Like someone lifted the remote and made everything stop. All he can see is Jean, who isn’t smiling anymore. He thinks he looks… nervous? But Jean doesn’t get nervous.

So when Jean’s grip on his jaw softens, and he tilts Eren’s head back to kiss him, Eren suddenly feels like life is going too fast. His gut does a lurching flip, and then he loses all coherent track of time.

Jean’s mouth is hot and warm, his tongue soft and wet, clinging to every one of Eren’s senses somehow. He can’t really process anything other than it feels good,  _real_  good. Jean kisses him the way Eren pictures some people taste wine - all slow and savoring. Jean’s tongue slips down his throat, and it’s like he’s trying to lick the taste of the beer from him, and Eren whimpers a little when he curls his toes and feels Jean’s foot press against his beneath the table.

When Jean pulls back, huffing and panting, he looks down at Eren’s hands. He’s got one pressed into Jean’s chest, not pushing or anything, just resting there. The other is clutching Jean’s wrist beneath where Jean still has him held by his jaw. Jean kisses him again, this time softer, more chaste, and Eren whines at it.

“It’s okay to want new things,” Jean murmurs into his mouth.

They spend the entire afternoon making out on his floor. If Eren wasn’t high he would probably have noticed how badly his balls ached from being so hard and not doing anything about it, but he’s two miles past far gone as it is.

Eren only jumps back to reality when the sound of Jean’s phone buzzing pulls them apart, and Eren catches another flash of Armin’s name. Something awful lurches in his chest, tightens in a weird, sinking sort of pain, but Jean grabs his jaw again and makes him look him in the eye. Apparently Eren is a lot easier to read when he’s halfway to wasted.

“This was  _his_  idea, you know,” Jean whispers, like it’s a secret.

Eren can’t really wrap his head around what that means, so he clenches his eyes closed and lets Jean kiss him again until he softens, until his bony arms wind their way around Jean’s neck and his mouth is raw and burning from the repeated attention of Jean’s stubbly mouth.

  
  


Eren meets both Jean and Armin at the warehouse for practice after a much needed morning spent alone with a cup of coffee and a week and a half old newspaper. It’s his way of pretending he’s an adult that has his life all figured out, sitting in that stupid cafe with it’s foggy windows and old leather sofas. He reads the paper like he gives a damn, like anyone walking past can’t see how far behind on the times he really is.

Jean actually isn’t there yet, it’s just Armin huddled up in a parka and a scarf that makes Eren’s insides twist a little when he sees it. He’s plucking at his guitar without the amp plugged in, the metallic twang of the strings sounding almost foreign compared to Armin’s usually heavy handed gusto.

Armin’s up on his feet as Jean miraculously appears right behind him, though. Jean has this stupid flat-billed baseball cap on, tilted upward with an extra dose of douche-baggery. Eren snorts as he passes him, calls him exactly that- a douchebag. Eren turns just enough as he walks past them to catch Armin grinning and silently mouthing out to Jean  _“I like it”_.

If he’s honest, he still feels a little awkward about their baked makeout session on the floor of his apartment. Maybe awkward isn’t the word. It’s like he’s hanging, in a weird sort of way, like he’s waiting for something. They’re supposed to try out some more vocalist hopefuls today, but Eren’s heart just isn’t in it. Jean’s words resonate around the hollows of his skull, spaces he probably thinks a brain would usually occupy - _it’s okay to want new things_.

“Maybe we blow off auditions today,” Eren supplies casually, like if the two of them were to say no to it he wouldn’t still call it all off. Armin lifts a questioning brow at him, which is the only reason he decides to elaborate, “Let’s just wing it as a trio again. We did alright last time.”

Eren hates the way he watches Jean’s grin grow, hears the soft crackle of lips pulling over his perfect, white teeth.

“Sounds like my kinda gig,” Jean says, and Eren curses himself for wanting to kiss him again so badly. With Armin in the room, even. If it really was Armin’s idea, then he wouldn’t be opposed to Eren inviting Jean over, right?

After practice they all make their way through the town towards the station. Jean has to help his mom with something and Armin has work, so Eren is once again doomed to spend the afternoon alone. Armin suggested he pick up more shifts, that they could use the money, but that’s a hell of a lot easier said than done.

They pass on the opposite side of the block where Trost Bar is. Right as they come up to the side alley, the same one Armin had pinned him to before to get him to chill out, Eren comes across one of those prop-up chalkboards with the Trost logo on it - one of the ones where cafes and shit usually write their drink specials.

Except this one doesn’t have drink specials. This one has something that stops Eren dead in his tracks.

_‘Open Mic Night Tonight!_  
 _Annie Leonhardt_  
 _feat Mikasa’_

Armin sees it too, Eren distantly hears him mutter something in quiet disdain. Jean’s hand rests timidly on his waist, but Eren is only vaguely coherent enough to feel the warmth of it, to realize it’s there. Jean tugs him by the waist now, trying to get him to move, but Eren shrugs him off.

Instead he kicks the piece of shit sign over and storms back in the other direction. Jean and Armin know where they’re going, he doesn’t need to hold their fucking hands.

 

  
They’ve been practicing for nearly five hours straight this time, so Eren doesn’t think it’s too outlandish to believe he is actually asleep on the tattered futon by the wall and not just pretending to be. Armin and Jean have been fucking around with Armin’s guitars for a while, sitting on one of the corners of the garish rug beneath Eren’s kit, and Eren only stops to listen to what they’re saying when their voices drop. You only talk quiet when you’re trying to hide something.

They’re talking about him, no surprises there. What is at least a little surprising is when Eren starts to make out the quiet rustle of clothing and then the telltale sounds of them kissing - the soft, muted sound of mouths connecting, of their breaths becoming threaded together. He shivers at the sound, squeezes his eyes shut tight to block out any physical reaction to the noise, and is silently thankful he decided to be pretend-asleep facing the  _back_  of the futon.

“Is he okay?” Jean mutters quietly, sighing contentedly, like Armin hasn’t completely stopped kissing him yet.

“He will be,” Armin replies.

“Why is he still so hung up on her?”

Something twists in Eren’s gut, but he stays stock still.

“It was different with her, you know, it’s like… he wasn’t  _just_  dating her. It’s like they were family, in a weird sort of way.”

“But you’re that way with him too,” Jean says, and Eren can just imagine the pushy piece of shit face he’s pulling when he says it.

“It’s different.”

“No it isn’t, Armin, come on-”

“He’s just an affectionate person,” Armin says, louder than before, his voice tight with finality. Eren frowns without realizing it.

“Armin, are we seriously talking about the same person?”

Eren hears another rustle of clothes, a strangely familiar sound. He imagines Armin pulling back in on himself as he says, “I don’t really want to talk about it. Not right now.”

Jean sighs tiredly, and Eren suddenly feels horribly awkward again. Who the fuck sits in on their friends conversations and pretends to be asleep? Friends who may or may not be fucking on a regular basis, at that.

“I wish he’d let me in a little more,” Jean says, and Eren is so tempted to turn around and tell him to stop acting so fucking pathetic,  _jesus_. “Still feels like i’m an outsider half the time.”

“Nah, you’re not an outsider,” Armin says, and Eren can tell he’s smiling just by the way his voice sounds. “If you were an outsider you wouldn’t be here. This is Eren’s way of letting you in, you know, he just does it slowly.”

Jean hums and moves around a bit. Just by how much closer he sounds Eren can tell he’s scooted close to the couch.

“He’s peaceful when he sleeps, at least,” Jean says, and even though Eren is half expecting it, he still flinches in surprise when Jean’s fingers push into his hair.

Well,  _fuck_ \- gig’s up now.

Just to cover any leftover traces of embarrassment as he sits up, Eren bites at Jean’s hand for good measure, grinning when he pulls it back and jumps.

“Jesus shitting  _christ_ -”

“You fuckers seriously thought I’d sleep through that?” Eren says, laughing at how terrified they both look.

“Shit, you heard  _all_  of that?” Jean says, looking - for lack of a better word - kind of exhausted. Eren feels a little bit bad about it. Only a little.

Eren shrugs, knowing he’ll have to confront all of this eventually, but he isn’t in the mood right now. He catches Armin watching him carefully, and smiles a little, an attempt at reassurance.

The way Armin smiles back says a lot of things. He even smirks a little, like maybe a small part of him knew Eren would be listening - or maybe that part of him hoped he’d hear.

  
  


■/■/■

  
  


“You wanna order pizza or something?”

Armin turns until he’s on his back, his head pillowed in Eren’s lap on their couch, Eren’s laptop off to the side, forgotten.

“Can we afford pizza?” Armin asks.

Eren lifts a small wad of bills, probably all one’s, but still. The way he grins all boyish with one eyebrow raised above the other makes something warm stir in Armin’s gut.

“Gig money, we’re floatin’ in cash.”

Armin snorts, rolls onto his other side so that his nose is pressed into Eren’s stomach, muffling his laughter. They still have half a joint leftover from what Jean left them with the other day. Ever since Jean got a new, slightly more serious job he’s had less time for practice. Armin still kind of wants to tell him to go back to school, but he knows Jean wouldn’t listen to him. He looked amusingly hot in an ironed shirt and a pair of trousers, which is a thought Armin never thought he’d think.

He’s too used to his attraction to Eren, it’s become something comfortable for him, something easy. Armin has spent too much time wanting nothing more than messy, inky black hair and dark eyes, bony wrists and faded black tattoos of music notes on the inside of forearms, tshirts and ripped jeans that haven’t been washed in a few days but don’t smell as bad as they should.

Even now, it’s still as strong as it was when he was a kid and only just feeling out what the term ‘attraction’ meant. Eren pushes his fingers into Armin’s hair, scratches his scalp a few times with his blunt nails. It takes every ounce of willpower not to push Eren’s tshirt up to kiss his stomach. If there’s anything Armin’s gotten good at over the years, it’s ignoring these random impulses. Still… Eren traces the underside of Armin’s jaw, probably feels how wild his pulse is fluttering from it, and Armin thinks there’s only so much certain people can take.

“You reek,” he says, pushing up from Eren’s lap, laughing at how offended and pitiful he looks, like a child who’s had his favorite toy taken away.

“You can be a rude asshole sometimes, you know? Your looks are fucking deceiving,” Eren bites, and Armin laughs again. They stubbed out that joint hours ago, but Armin can still feel it a little, the leftover dregs of a weighted, heavy high.

“Shower?” Armin suggests innocently.

Eren looks at Armin for longer than he needs to, before nodding quietly.

Eren has the habit of diving headfirst into everything, it’s just a part of his character. So the fact that he points the entire spray of water directly over himself before the shower has even had a chance to heat up isn’t so much a surprise as it should be.

There’s a long list of ‘should be’s with Eren though. Armin supposes not many best friends shower together, but it’s not even really something he thinks about anymore. Although, this time does feel a little bit different, for some reason.

Eren shivers beneath the lukewarm spray of water, eyes clenched shut and arms wrapped around his chest. Armin huffs, and pulls him out of the spray, holds his face in his hands as he wipes the water away from his eyes. He isn’t sure why, but he doesn’t feel like pretending nothing’s happening anymore, there’s this phantom itch in the back of his throat that makes him feel like talking.

So he forces Eren to look at him, and tells him, “Sometimes people break your heart, but they don’t mean it, alright, it just happens. People grow apart, while others grow together, it’s the organic nature of life.”

What Armin is expecting in response is to be shoved away or ignored, what he gets instead is a crooked smirk and to be pulled into the damp, chilly skin of his best friend’s chest.

“Don’t you go turning into a fucking hippie and leaving me too,” Eren murmurs against Armin’s hair, and something shifts into place and Armin  _gets it_. Maybe he isn’t still mourning the loss of a friend, but fearing for the loss of whoever’s left.

Armin presses his nose into Eren’s collarbone, breathes him in as Eren’s shivers slowly subside. Their skin, where it presses together, heats up rapidly, that warmth coupled with the cold water makes Armin break out into goosebumps. Eren dips his head down, noses softly at Armin’s ear, and he can’t help how his body responds to it - he never could.

Eren then whispers in his ear, no hint of teasing in his voice, “Are you hard for me?”

Armin shoves him, back until he’s drenched again in half cold water, and says, “This can’t seriously be the first time you’ve noticed.”

Except, as Eren stands there looking a little more than bewildered, Armin realizes that maybe it  _is_. Eren’s eyes flutter as they dance around Armin’s face, searching it for something. And Armin laughs, because Eren is so fucking  _dramatic_  - even without talking he manages to overreact. His eyes are all wide and petrified, and Armin is tempted to push him down into the tub and yell at him, _“I love you and it’s okay for you to love me too, so chill the fuck out!”_

He doesn’t though, and Eren seems shaken enough to actually focus on having a real shower as opposed to using it as an excuse to cuddle Armin.

When they get out of the shower, Eren tosses his towel over Armin’s head and rubs over it at rapid speed, aggressively drying off his hair, laughing at the disheveled state of him once Armin yanks the towel off.

“So, is Jean the jealous type?” Eren asks, drops it like it’s nothing, like they talk about what Jean means to them both all the time, no big deal.

Armin laughs quietly, pushing damp clumps of hair out of his eyes, and says, “No, but he thinks  _you_  are.”

Eren shrugs, turns in all his naked glory to hang the damp towels over the shower rail. “I guess I kind of am.”

Armin sighs quietly, and then allows himself the liberty of touching the small trail of hair that runs down towards Eren’s sternum, the skin clean and warm, despite the lack of hot water. Eren’s stomach jumps when Armin’s roaming fingers skate beneath his ribs. He’s got a tiny little zit in the center of his chest, beneath the small amount of hair there, that Armin finds himself wanted to squeeze. Jean and his fucking potent product, man-

Armin startles a little when Eren wraps an arm around his waist, leans his head down and presses a soft kiss to his neck.

“You don’t have to be jealous, you know,” Armin says, maybe a little desperately.

Eren doesn’t say anything, just kisses Armin’s neck again and then settles more of his weight on Armin, leans like he’s been relieved of some heavy burden. Armin tries to hide his big goofy smile in Eren’s hair, even if it’s only himself that can see it in the reflection from the mirror.

  
  


 

Armin is about to leave Jean’s house when he gets the text.

His throat is a little sore and the back of his tongue tastes like a rancid mix of spunk and weed, but he still grins like an idiot when Jean holds his face to kiss him. His bag is stuffed to the brim with various tupperware containers full of food, and Armin really hates the thought of leaving Jean tonight, for reasons he’s not sure he’s ready to identify.

Jean just keeps fucking  _kissing_  him, walking Armin backwards until he nearly trips over the stairs, holding onto his face. He’s got one leg of his jeans caught on his ankle and is in nothing else but one of those gay muscle tanks he’s taking to now, since the weather’s heating up, and a pair of socks. Armin doesn’t even  _want_  the sex, he just wants to burrow his nose into Jean’s chest and stay there a while.

So he’s glad he checks his phone and catches Eren’s text when he does, while Jean still has him pinned to the stairs, having fallen right ontop of him.

Glad is an understatement - he’s  _over the fucking moon_.

_‘bring jean home w/ u… and pickup sum booze on the way’_

  
  


■/■/■

  
  


Jean is fully aware that he’s being ridiculous right now. Completely and totally aware, yet he can’t stop himself from cringing as he checks himself out in the mirror, stops trying to perfect his usual wide mouthed smirk that he uses to get Armin out of his pants, and instead huffs at how hard his hands shake as he flattens down his shirt, adjusts his jacket.

He’s been locked up in Armin and Eren’s bathroom for probably a suspicious amount of time now. There’s no logical reason behind being this nervous - they both want him here. Maybe he’s building it up in his head too much. He doesn’t need to morph into this dual reign wrangling sex-god… he can just be himself, right? Right.

Okay. So.

He ditched the hat he was wearing earlier, only because Eren called him a douche in it last week. Which is dumb, because Armin likes it, and Eren  _always_  calls him a douche. Instead he’s dipping into Armin’s fruity smelling pomade, styling his wide and flat excuse of a mohawk, and incriminating himself at least a little with how strong it smells on his hands.

The rest of him is okay, he supposes. He’s wearing that muscle tank he got that says  _‘off the wall’_  beneath a brightly colored windbreaker - the one that Eren swears was stolen right out of the eighties. For pants he has on this ratty old green pair of joggers that sits just above his bare ankles, and suddenly dressing like a bum around these guys is somehow unacceptable.

It’s a bit late now, though.

They don’t want anything from him, Jean subconsciously repeats to himself, that isn’t what this is. Even if his heart beats twice as fast anticipating something he can’t name, even if wants _everything_  from them, all they have to give him.

“You done primping, princess? We need a third out here,” Armin teases, knocking quietly on the door.

Jean only grins because he can’t help it now.

So, a few hours later Jean comes to the conclusion that whoever decided getting high and playing Fatal Frame was a good idea needs to take a step back and reevaluate their choice of activity - horror and high  _don’t_  mix well. Jean isn’t exactly shaken, he’s too far gone to let it affect him all that much, but it was still kind of intense. Also Eren only has one fucking controller for his old PS2, which means they had to take turns and it ended up morphing into a weird interactive movie, in a way.

They end up collapsed all over Eren’s mattress, which has made it’s way to the floor, thanks to Armin. Jean finishes off rolling another joint, twisting the tip, and then tilting his head to the side as he lights it. Armin’s been strumming idly at his acoustic for a little while now, but Eren has been starting at Jean intently for the past 20 odd minutes or so.

“Want a hit?” Jean asks, voice tight with keeping the smoke inhaled, and Eren’s eyes then fall to his mouth.

He nods, not looking away from Jean’s lips, and Jean is starting to get it. He leans forward suddenly, and grips Eren by the jaw. Eren makes this helpless little whimpering noise, one that has Armin quickly looking over at them and grinning. Jean flips the joint around in his fingers, poised to stick the ember into his own mouth.

“Open wide,” he says, and then closes his lips over it blows into Eren’s mouth. It’s a massive hit, so much that tiny tendrils of smoke escape the space in Eren’s lips.

Jean laughs as Eren inhales it all, eyes wide and watering. Once he’s let it all out of his mouth he tackles Jean with a weak hand around his neck, and Jean cannot stop fucking  _laughing_. It’s to the point where even Armin has put his guitar down and is crawling over to them. It’s a wonder he can even move like that in those jeans he’s wearing, skin fucking tight with nothing else but a girly tshirt to go with it. Thinking about this only makes Jean laugh harder.

“God, you’re such a fucking waster,” Eren says, pushing himself up as he sits on Jean’s hips, looking down at him like he’s a lost cause.

Jean leans up on his elbows, lets his jacket fall from his shoulders and shakes the rest of it from his arms until it’s off him completely. Jean only gets the confidence to say what he does next because of the way Armin is biting his lip and trying not to smile at them.

“Makeout with me.”

Eren’s eyebrows fly up his forehead, he looks at Jean like he’s just told him he can fly. Eren opens his mouth to say something, but stays silent. Instead he looks over at Armin, silently asking for… something, Jean doesn’t really understand what- but something about the gesture only makes Jean want to kiss him more.

When he dips down and presses his lips to Jean’s, it seems to somehow settle all the nerves from earlier, it’s like that one touch is enough to tell Jean that this is okay, with all of them. Eren kisses about as aggressively as you might expect - he’s not as high as he was the last time they did this, and he’s obviously a little awkward about doing it with Armin in the room.

Which only makes it all the more satisfying when Armin crawls up behind him and starts lifting up Eren’s tshirt, runs his hands all over his stomach and down. When Armin cups Eren’s dick through his jeans, he groans so loud it feels like it makes Jean’s brain rattle.

Eren ends up rolling his hips into Armin’s hands, pressing so far forward that the backs of Armin’s knuckles brush against Jean’s own erection, and it turns into a fucking mess of moving bodies and groaning noises- so, inevitably, Jean lets his head fall back as he starts laughing again.

“Oh my  _god_ , you fucking stoner piece of shit, you can’t even  _function_  right now,” Eren snaps.

He looks like he’s about to go off on a tirade about how people that can’t hold their high shouldn’t smoke, but then Armin’s up on his knees, kissing around the side of Eren’s neck, and Jean’s groin aches when he watches the delicate flutter of Eren’s eyes sliding closed in pleasure. The sight is as arousing as it is sobering, so Jean finds himself sitting up, his own hands replacing Armin’s on Eren’s stomach.

Eren grunts as Armin’s teeth sink slowly into the skin at his shoulder, his hands pulling Eren’s tshirt away, exposing the skin.

“I don’t know what to do, what do you guys even do? How do you two fuck?” Eren asks in a frantic rush, voice breathless.

Jean only laughs because he thinks everything is hilarious, but Armin glares at him like now is not the time.

“Um,” Jean says, and then clears his throat to try and settle it, to stop it from sounding so fucking wheezy and wrecked, “We don’t really  _fuck_  fuck. We just fool around, I guess?”

Armin snorts, burying his face in Eren’s neck, his shoulders shaking in laughter.

“Well, fucking  _show me_ , jesus,” Eren snaps, shoving weakly at Jean’s chest, “How do you fool around? I want in.”

Jean loses it again, laughs from real deep in his chest. He can feel Eren’s thighs when they clench around his in his lap in response to the sound. Armin leans forward a little, takes Eren’s jaw in his hand and turns his face to the side and kisses him.

And Jean knows this isn’t the first time they’ve kissed, but it certainly feels like it could be. Eren does the same thing he did to Jean, grips Armin’s wrist as he kisses him back. And really, these are the kind of front row seats you could charge for - Eren’s lips part and Jean watches Armin’s tongue slip into his mouth, and he’s pressing his palm down onto his quickly stiffening dick just from that alone.

Jean slips out from beneath them and Armin climbs over Eren’s lap, turns him so they’re facing each other while Jean leans over the edge of the mattress and finishes off the joint that was left to burn in the ashtray. Everything else seems to happen in a hazy mesh of time, where Jean slides up behind Armin, pushes his hair aside and starts to kiss the back of his neck, all the while Eren is pawing at Armin’s jeans, making little hungry noises in the back of his throat.

They end up pulling apart, and somewhere between Jean pulling Armin’s tshirt up over his chest and Eren tugging Armin’s jeans off, there’s an utterance of, “ _fuck,_  I want to suck your dick so bad”.

Which is funny to Jean, apparently. Because he’s laughing again and Armin swats the back of his head, but then it’s like any amount of hesitation Eren initially had is gone. He yanks Armin’s ridiculously tight jeans right down his thighs, crawls between his legs and suck the head of Armin’s cock into his mouth like he’s been waiting all his life to taste him.

Armin keens, his back arching so that his head rests on Jean’s shoulder. Jean becomes a little more than lost in it too, in watching the way Eren’s lips gets pink and a little raw, in the way his cheeks hollow out when he sucks him down to the root, in the way his eyes are all watery and hazy when he looks up at them both.

Jean doesn’t really contribute much other than cursing under his breath and holding Armin, touching his stomach and his chest, kissing the soft, warm skin beneath his ear. Armin keeps squirming around, and he shouts this deliciously wrecked moan when he comes in Eren’s mouth.

Eren pulls himself away from Armin, arms stretched to hold himself up, eyes blazing fire. He looks almost feral, wild with it. Jean watches in rapt attention as the muscles in Eren’s throat work as he swallows Armin’s come.

“Come here,” Jean says, voice throaty and thick, and he groans helplessly when Eren moves right to him, without questioning it.

Armin is practically collapsed in his lap, grinning like the cat that caught the mouse, his eyes slid peacefully closed. Eren holds onto Jean’s face this time when they kiss, slides the wet heat of his tongue right alongside Jean’s. Jean can taste Armin and cheap beer on him, and something about it leads him to sucking on Eren’s tongue, chasing it.

Eren pulls away just enough to press their foreheads together, panting against Jean’s mouth. Jean isn’t exactly sure what’s happening except that Eren’s eyes clench closed and he whimpers, falls into Jean. Looking down, Jean can see the hand Armin has stuffed down his pants.

By the time Jean is rolling his next joint, he’s managed to come twice (once, unfortunately, in his joggers) and Armin still refuses to open his eyes, sits curled somewhere between the two of them, smiling and sleepy. Eren doesn’t push him to wake the way Jean would, he only uses his fingers to comb the hair away from Armin’s face, traces the curve of his jaw with his thumb.

“Are you okay?” Jean finds himself asking, and Eren sends him a funny look. “With everything, I mean.”

Eren grins, all crooked and lazy, a residual high from the earlier bud and having two different sets of hands on him.

“Yeah,” Eren says, and then laughs like an idiot, “Yeah, I’m alright.”

Jean throws a random snack wrapper at him after rooting around on their dirty ass floor behind him, and Eren doesn’t snap at him, in fact it’s like his temper and all that tension coiled in his muscles have been drained right out of him. Jean can’t wait to suck him off, to drag it out and see how long he can take it without screaming, to hear him whimper like that again.

If Jean thinks about it, that’s the biggest deal out of all of this. It could happen again. It probably _will_  happen again. Armin is still half-sleeping like he’s caught in the best dream he’s ever had and refuses to wake up, and Eren is still kinda flushed and bright in the eyes.

And if there’s anything better than visual cues, it’s verbal confirmation.

“Will you stay?” Eren asks quietly, the controller back in his hand after being tossed aside earlier. He looks at the TV instead of at Jean.

“The night?” Jean asks.

“Just…” Eren says, still only looking at the screen, the controller loose and out of use in his hand. “Stay, okay?”

Jean glances down at Armin, at his blond hair a disheveled mess around his softly sleeping face, at the way he’s curled so contently between them. His jeans aren’t even buttoned up, the tiny pale patch of skin above his cock exposed to them both, his stomach soft and expanding gently with every breath.

Jean says, “okay,” and Eren exhales, like he’d been waiting for the word to be able to breathe again.

And Jean thinks about quitting school and getting new jobs. He thinks about where he would be, right this very second, if that part of his life hadn’t ended. Probably at home, studying. It wouldn’t be a horrible fate, but it also wouldn’t be _this_  - this, the beginning of something for  _all_ of them.


End file.
